Not a sudden trend
Continuing again from here. The 'confidence' poll in the mid 70s showed that Labor was rapidly losing public support, for good reasons. Big Labor was no longer protecting the workers from predatory capitalists. Big Labor was working WITH the capitalists to lower the quality and skill of work, and ultimately to eliminate real work entirely.

The robber barons KNEW what they were doing. They were replacing factories and workers by pure Share Value and Share Buybacks. The labor barons didn't seem to understand what they were doing.

This problem was starting to show in the '20s, as evidenced by a 1926 article in Billboard.

The article notes a landmark in the history of entertainment. The implications were clear to some people but not to Labor.



From the article:

The sudden falling-off of business in the theaters Iast night is being blamed on the broadcasting of John McCormack and Lucrezia Bori from a group of high-powered radio stations between the hours of nine and ten. It was the first program of music arranged by the Victor Talking Machine Company in a series which will enlist the services of many well-known artists. The concerts are to be broadcast every other Thursday night.

Commercial radio was only five years old and networks hadn't yet formed. Radio was already claiming high culture territory, and the audience loved it.

Actor and producer William Brady gets it:

"I am seated now in a room with a group of people, and we are enjoying, free of charge, a musical program over the radio that I can only describe as gorgeous. [And it's still gorgeous 93 years later!]

Why in the world should we go to the theater and pay money? Why should anyone be foolish enough to go to the theater in these circumstances? The trouble is not with the people who sit home and hear McCormack and Bori sing; the fault is entirely with the men who control the theater.

The plain truth is that we of the theater are headed straight for ruin, and one of the reasons that we cannot do anything about it is that the theater is not organized for concerted action. By quarreling and squabbling among themselves the managers broke up their organization and made any concerted action impossible.

"Everyone in the theater knows that the holiday business in New York and all over the country ... has been the worst In the history of amusements. And we are all sitting back, like a lot of dunces on a Humpty-Dumpty bench, ruining ourselves.

The motion pictures have got Will Hays to look out for their interests, and baseball has got Judge Landis, but the theater, because it is controlled by a lot of conceited ignoramuses, has got nobody."

Frank Gilmore, head of the Actors Equity union, didn't get it.

"The Equity is unfortunately limited in any action that it might take. We have passed a resolution that if a microphone is placed in the theater for the purpose of broadcasting the performance, the manager shall be charged by the actors for an extra performance. We realize that this is not a very drastic provision, but it was adopted solely to make broadcasting expensive for the manager.

I have heard plays broadcast, and I do not believe that anyone who hears a play in this fashion will ever want to go see the play. Plays emerge very badly over the radio, and I am sure that such performances keep many people away from the theater."

Gilmore missed both points. (1) Radio wasn't ruining the theater because radio performances gave people a bad example of performance. Radio was gaining because it was offering BETTER quality at a lower price. (2) Punishing the manager for adding a larger audience is a good way to lose the support of the manager, who is likely to give up live performances and stick to radio.

Labor continued to miss both points, especially in the auto industry. (1) Toyota wasn't gaining customers because it gave people a poor impression of cars. Toyota was gaining customers because Toyota showed people what a GODDAMN GOOD CAR felt like. (2) The way to defeat Toyota wasn't by raising wages even higher to drive manufacturing OUT of America.... which made the capitalists happy because they were just waiting for a chance to eliminate manufacturing entirely. The correct path was to organize the auto industry toward better quality to meet the competition. Among the capitalists, only Romney understood the problem and tried to be Judge Landis. But he failed, and was long gone by the '70s.

Radio didn't need an independent 'office' like the Hays Office, because the FCC enforced HARDASS quality control until, surprise surprise, 1971.

= = = = =

Update next day: We're still not learning the lesson. Verbatim repetition of the same Gilmore stupidity:

Actress Helen Mirren has had enough of Netflis, and she's letting the world know. The actress, who is most famous for roles in in “The Queen” and “Gosford Park,” recently said on stage in Las Vegas: "I love Netflix, but fuck Netflix. There's nothing like sitting in a cinema."

Well, what are you doing about it? Are you making movies that humans can watch? No. You're making movies FOR, BY AND ABOUT your own infinitely evil caste of hyperhypersatanic alien NYC monsterblobs. Are you trying to improve the experience of sitting in a cinema? No.

Labels: Alternate universe, Entertainment, skill-estate

  ¶ 2:52 AM